The Warwick City Council voted to approve a long list of bid awards amounting to over $3 million for various city departments during their Aug. 21 meeting, as was recommended by the Warwick Finance Committee. A list of notable awards is provided below.

Denied

The city council ultimately denied a bid of $4,352.77 to purchase a new baseball scoreboard from BSN Sports of Jenkintown, Penn. for the Mickey Stevens Sports Complex, after an answer could not be provided on whether or not the current scoreboard is still operational.

“We’ve been asking for this for four or five months and we still have not received an answer,” said Ward 5 Councilman and finance committee chair Ed Ladouceur.

Tabled

A $3,263 bid to supply the Warwick Fire Department with a 220v electric pressure washer to clean the underside of their fire trucks of road salt and other debris in order to prevent rust and degradation was ultimately tabled by the council until Sept. 18.

Ladouceur raised logistical questions regarding whether it would be more cost-effective to purchase a washer for more than one station, so trucks didn’t have to commute cross-city in order to get washed. He also reasoned that being able to wash road salt off the trucks was not a pressing issue yet, as winter weather is not yet on the immediate horizon, so more thinking into the matter was the right thing to do.

Another bid request in the amount of $60,100 (increased from $10,000 originally) to wire the Boys and Girls Club of Warwick’s Cooper Building for phone and internet service was asked to be rescinded, but no reason was provided as to why due to the absence of Management Information Services (MIS) director, Carlos Zambrano. The council voted to hold the decision until Sept. 6 in order to learn the reason.

Approved

The Warwick Police department received multiple awards for various areas of need, including $14,000 for 28 pieces of “miscellaneous police gear,” including holsters, handcuffs, pepper spray and spray holders, lights, whistles and other gear. The vendors for the gear were Jurek Brothers, Inc. of Greenfield, Mass., Arrow Safety Device of Selbyville, Del. and Atlantic Tactical Inc. of New Cumberland, Penn.

The police were also awarded a bid for $7,500 to obtain new badges for their hats and uniforms, as well as name insignias and name plates from Lawmen’s & Shooters’ Supply Inc. of Vero Beach, Fla. They also were approved a $7,000 bid for photography and printing services from Adorama, Inc. of New York, NY and Kerry’s Warwick Photo Labs, Inc. of Warwick.

Police were also granted permission to increase a bid request for new firearms by $2,714.70, increasing that overall bid to $35,062.70. The impetus to increase the bid amount was a result of having four fewer firearms and 48 fewer magazines to trade in than was expected. The police were also approved for a $30,000 increase to their existing $21,000 bid to purchase more ballistic vests, which go for $683.77 per vest.

The Warwick Fire Department was awarded a $50,000 bid to Cyber Comm. Solutions Inc., of Warwick to conduct maintenance and repairs on their communications equipment. They were also awarded $10,750 to contract Shipman’s Fire Equipment of Waterford, Conn. to conduct quarterly and semi-annual testing of breathing air compressors and related equipment.

Other large awards included $183,049.40 to renew software and licensing support from Tyler Technologies in order to cover the computing needs of the city’s accounting, payroll, purchasing, the tax assessor and collector’s office, as well as utility billing software for the Warwick Sewer Authority and Water Division. The contract will run from July 1, 2017 to June 30, 2018. The Warwick Water Division was also awarded $70,000 to purchase large diameter clamps, saddles and couplings.

The Department of Public Works was approved for a few large bids, including $230,000 to conduct tire recapping from Sullivan Tire, $40,000 to rebuild the transmissions of work vehicles and $10,000 to repair and conduct maintenance on vehicle radiators. Another $60,000 was awarded to conduct HVAC maintenance in city-owned buildings, which was awarded to CAM HVAC & Construction, Inc. of North Smithfield.

Another bid involving HVAC was for $18,040 to conduct maintenance at Thayer Arena. The bid was split between CAM HVAC and Environmental Systems, Inc. of Warwick. CAM HVAC would conduct more general contracting while ESI would conduct the more specialized work required to deal with the more “sensitive” elements of Thayer’s complex refrigeration system.

A bid of $2.5 million to the Cardi Corporation to conduct street improvements two years from the date of the award was the largest bid awarded of the night. National Grid could contribute as much as $1.5 million in reimbursement for the construction work over the course of the two-year contract. The current construction contract expired on Sunday, Aug. 27.